Reading, writing take Everest student deep into history

Senior Ryan Eisenman aims for a doctorate to teach at the college level

Jan. 29, 2013

Eisenman, 17, is now a senior at D.C. Everest Senior High School with a 4.0 grade point average, and he plans to earn a doctorate in history. He intends to teach college-level European history. / Keith Uhlig/Daily Herald Media

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Jacob Eckmann

Ryan Eisenman’s study tips

1. Do all your homework when it’s assigned. Keeping on top of day-to-day studying helps you avoid last-minute cramming and stress. 2. Allow yourself time to relax. “If you just go, go, go, eventually you’re going to overload,” Eisenman said. He does his toughest homework first and takes periodic breaks. 3. “Discuss what you’re learning with your friends,” he said. If you have trouble with a subject, perhaps they can help you. If you can explain it to them, you know you’ve got the concepts. 4. Don’t rely on cramming or staying up late to study before tests or exams. Sleep and rest is important. 5. Don’t be afraid to ask for help.

Academic excellence

Jacob Eckmann

The way Jacob Eckmann, an eighth-grader at Idea Charter School of the D.C. Everest Area School District, approaches his academic projects “is phenomenal,” said Jacques du Vair, a teacher adviser at the school. Students take responsibility for their own education at the project-based school, with guidance from teachers. Students choose individual projects and then reach for specific academic goals and standards. Eckmann thrives in that environment, du Vair said, because “he wants the absolute most out of every project and produces high quality work.” Not all students thrive in that system, du Vair said. “But Jacob is the type of kid who would be successful anywhere because he’s just so motivated to do well. ... It’s fun to watch a kid do that.”

Cassidy Welch

Cassidy Welch’s natural curiosity and excitement to learn has helped make the eighth-grader at Mosinee Middle School become a nearly straight-A student, said Principal Ron Mueller. “She got a B+ in metals,” he said. The fact she even took a metals course shows Welch’s wide-ranging interests, Mueller said. “She gets the idea that working with her peers and getting along with others is important,” Mueller said. “She displays leadership, is a role model, and has personality and charm, all those soft skills that are so important.” Welch likes taking industrial arts classes, even though she thinks she might become a pilot or go into the medical field. “I kind of like the challenge of being one of the only girls in those kinds of classes,” Welch said.

Elizabeth Cooke

Dave Wysong is a first-year administrator at Faith Christian Academy in Wausau and is getting to know his students. One who stands out is senior Elizabeth Cooke. Cooke impressed Wysong with her inquisitive mind and work ethic. “She has a great capacity for academic achievement, and she works hard to reach that potential,” Wysong said. Cooke shows that capacity in an economics course that Wysong teaches. “She’s engaged, and attentive,” Wysong said. “And she wrestles with the materials. I say that, and she might even laugh at that. But in my short time as her teacher, I can tell the wheels are turning. She is thinking and she has a hunger to understand.”

D.C. Everest Senior High School senior Ryan Eisenman shows some of the books he has worked on as part of the district's Oral History Project. / Keith Uhlig/Daily Herald Media

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WESTON — Ryan Eisenman was in middle school when he began to notice that reading, writing and history came naturally to him, and he enjoyed history classes the most.

“I think there are just so many different personalities, Eisenman said. “It’s just so interesting to learn about.”

Eisenman, 17, is now a senior at D.C. Everest Senior High School with a 4.0 grade point average, and he plans to earn a doctorate in history. He intends to teach college-level European history.

Eisenman was in eighth grade when he joined the district’s Oral History Project, an extracurricular activity that publishes books that contain students’ interviews with people who experienced historical events.

Eisenman is bright and articulate, with an easygoing manner. But his success as a student doesn’t all come naturally. He has to put extra effort into his science and math classes. “It’s all those numbers,” he said. His key academic success is consistent work.

“It’s the day-to-day part, doing the homework every day, that makes taking the unit test easier. And if the unit test is easier, then taking the final exam is easier,” Eisenman said. “Cramming doesn’t work for me. I know my brain doesn’t work that way.”

On top of his daily studies (he’s taking a full load of courses in his last semester of high school) and work with the Oral History Project, Eisenman enjoys participating in Everest High School’s theater program, and taking voice lessons at the Wausau Conservatory of Music.

He has been accepted at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and is waiting to hear from Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., and the University of Chicago.

Everest Senior High School Principal Tom Johansen said Eisenman’s dedication and work are unparalleled. “He is the best history student, by far, to come through this high school,” Johansen said.

Eisenman already has made an impact on people’s lives as a historian, Johansen said. Eisenman was one of the student leaders who helped produce an Oral History Project book called “Witnesses and Survivors: The Story of the Holocaust.”

When the book’s publishing party was held at a Jewish center near Milwaukee, Eisenman spoke eloquently about the book and the survivors, Johansen said.

“When it was time to leave, everybody was gathering near the bus,” Johansen said. “And we couldn’t find Ryan. Here he was, back in the center, surrounded by the survivors who were asking him to sign copies of their books. ... Think about that: Here’s a student who has made enough of a difference in these people’s lives that they wanted his autograph.”

Eisenman was sheepish at the memory. “Well, I wasn’t the only student working on that book,” he said. “At first, I felt a little awkward, because it really wasn’t my book. I only wrote 1 or 2 percent of it. ... But at the same time, it always feels good when someone wants your autograph.”